


Brain Itch

by coyote_nebula



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fal-tor-pan, First Aid, Friendship, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Hiking, Hurt/Comfort, I tease a mind meld but no dice, Larry McMurtry style anecdotes, Loneliness, Major Character Injury, OC ship tease but McCoy isn't having it, Platonic Life Partners, Triumvirate, Vulcan, Vulcan Culture, Vulcan Mind Melds, breakfast because I can't write family drama around anything else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:02:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27492391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coyote_nebula/pseuds/coyote_nebula
Summary: Post Fal-tor-pan AU where the Enterprise crew is disbanded after rescuing Spock, and the Big Three move in with Spock's parents.Kirk has Feelings about losing the Enterprise and the rift between him and Spock. Spock has Feelings about Feelings. And McCoy just wants everybody to get along, get over it, or get out of his cotton-pickin' head, already.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk & Spock, Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Brain Itch

**Author's Note:**

> Because once a space friend, always a space friend.  
> (Update 11/24/20: Now with italics, as originally intended)

A routine emerged.

Jim, a habitually early riser even in these post-Enterprise days, would disappear sometime before sunup to hit the gym or whatever he did to burn off life’s frustrations. McCoy sometimes glimpsed him running to or from the towering spires and canyons peppering Sarek’s vast family property. He refrained from asking for details. It was enough that he was on an exercise regimen that combated his aging metabolism as well as the sullen tension that a night of tossing and turning built. Besides, on the few occasions they’d crossed paths in the pre-dawn hour Jim had made it stingingly clear that if he was an ex-starship captain, McCoy was an ex-CMO and could butt the hell out of his personal health from now on.

A lack of authority didn’t mean a lack of concern, but McCoy took the hint. 

Amanda seemed to share Jim’s propensity for rising with the birds (on Vulcan, incredibly terrifying dragon-like birds that were the fascination of pointy-eared children planetwide). She confided once that she may be used to Vulcan’s heat, but a human’s activity was still best relegated to the sunless parts of the day. Sometimes she and Jim could be heard talking quietly in the dark kitchen before they parted ways. Jim, to his physical meditations, and Amanda to her office or garden for an hour or two of work before the rest of the house awoke. 

McCoy usually waited until then to venture out of his rooms and head to the kitchen for a cup or two of coffee. He wasn’t avoiding Jim in general, exactly, just the untempered bite of his raw nerves.

’Course, Jim’s nerves were raw more often than not these days.

Although Spock woke about the same time as McCoy, hide nor hair of him would be seen until after a meditation session. His recovering mind still needed more rest and focused ordering than was typical for a Vulcan adult, but the Doctor-- because he  _ was  _ still a doctor, thank you, Starfleet commission or no-- often wondered if Spock was extra reclusive because of that or because of the lack of privacy in his post  _ fal-tor-pan  _ life. Even though the healers, scholars, researchers, hell, even  _ priestesses _ with an interest in Spock were screened and regulated with the help of his parents, there was one person he couldn’t completely evade: McCoy. 

McCoy had been aware in an academic way of Vulcan family bonds, whether between marriage mates or between parents and children. Kirk too had once alluded to it, to some kind of tether between himself and Spock, chuckling as he compared it to a mental blood brothers pact. But as with most psi-null specimens, McCoy had been ignorant up until now of what exactly that was like. And it was a mixed bag, to say the least.

Before he’d carried Spock’s  _ katra,  _ he would have found the residual mind-link uncanny. Disturbing, even. He’d had a distaste for the whole concept since the mirror-universe incident years ago. But as hard as it was to admit, it wasn’t just Spock that had been changed by the experience. Something of that Vulcan logic had become part of him just as something of his own illogical emotionalism had become part of Spock.

Close proximity to Spock-- say, being in the same room-- left McCoy open to regular slips in mental control. Confusion, fascination, pride, embarrassment, anxiety, elation, all were on the table at any moment to find their way through Spock’s fledgling barriers and insert themselves into his defenseless human mind. Relearning the nuances of both Vulcan and human social interactions was thus taxing to them both.

Spock felt McCoy’s mind too at these moments. Lord knows exactly what that entailed, but if Spock’s apologetic glances were any indication it wasn’t always warm and fuzzy. Momentarily ensconced in their own private, silent communication, McCoy felt fond, sometimes; other times, stung by sorrow at seeing his friend struggle. Occasionally he was annoyed by the intrusion. But there was a certain comfort to knowing and being known. A unique closeness. He could see now why it was such a treasured ability to the Vulcans, and to Jim. All those cryptic glances Spock and his captain used to share made a lot more sense now. 

McCoy knew Jim knew what was going on between them, that he was feeling the loss of a bond more personal than a human was ever meant to be granted. And on those dark mornings before exertion numbed the wound, the drawn, pained eyes bore loneliness and desolation in its place.

More than once, McCoy had overheard the mind healers (and even Sarek) sternly warn Kirk that  _ under no circumstances  _ was he to engage in a meld with Spock. Not because of danger to his human mind, although there was plenty of that, but because of the risk posed to  _ Spock’s  _ mind from the intense vacillations of Jim’s emotions.

“Your presence alone is challenge enough,” Sarek had observed, and McCoy didn’t have to be a telepath to sense the hurt rolling off of Jim at that. It wasn’t unkindly meant— after all, they were here on Sarek’s hospitality. But as a protective father bent on making up for decades of alienation, he wasn’t taking any chances.

And so it was little wonder Jim woke early every morning to take his bitterness out on his body.

By the time McCoy was sitting in the kitchen sipping his second cup of coffee and thumbing through the morning news feed, Jim would be due at any moment to bounce in on the first golden rays of sun, freshly showered and, for the moment, shining as ever. After pouring a cup he would invariably ask after Spock’s whereabouts, and McCoy would tell him to go find out himself. In truth he knew by the telepathic dead quiet that Spock was still meditating, but he figured it was best not to rub his secret knowledge in.

Lady Amanda usually reappeared in response to their stirrings and cracked a few eggs for a house breakfast. The heat-loving yard birds of Vulcan bore such a strong resemblance to the guinea fowl of McCoy’s childhood that he was convinced of some kind of interplanetary species exchange at some point in forgotten history. Spock, bless him, had earnestly volunteered to get to the bottom of the matter. After some days he’d returned disconcerted, reporting that the avian varieties were indeed related but both Earth and Vulcan adamantly claimed the origin of the animal, and paleontological evidence was inconclusive.

In any case, despite being a hotly debated topic by Vulcan standards,  _ eggs  _ evidently didn’t constitute  _ meat  _ in the Sarek household. Amanda informed them that since the birds were kept on the estate to the highest caliber of orinthological care, the eggs were a harmless by-product that would otherwise be wasted. And wasn’t waste  _ illogical?  _

On this morning Jim was toasting the spiced bread and chatting with the lady of the house about ShiKahr’s new Italian restaurant when slight static-- a  _ brain itch,  _ as McCoy often thought of it-- signaled Spock’s approach. He stirred his coffee and let Jim be the first to greet him. Amanda paused in her egg-turning to deposit a kiss on Spock’s obediently bent head, one of the few human affections she allowed herself and one of the many concessions this Vulcan made to his human companions.

Spock sat down next to McCoy with a nod. The loose sleeves of his tunic brushed by as he took a piece of toast from Jim, who leaned on the counter to work on his eggs.

“Well, Spock? Are we still on for our game later?” Jim asked cautiously, scraping his fork against the plate more loudly in a petulant reply to McCoy’s annoyed glare. Raw skin speckled Kirk’s fork hand, and the doctor made a mental note. 

“Yes, Capt- Jim,” said Spock, who emitted an invisible flare of mortification. Not as big as the other night when Spock corrected himself to  _ Mr. Jim,  _ which, while hilarious, had frustrated the recently decommissioned Kirk to the point of leaving the house in a huff. McCoy sat up to pounce on him as soon as he sagged in sometime in the early morning.

“You  _ knew  _ the consequences of crossing Starfleet to do the right thing, so stop blaming the right thing for the consequences!” McCoy had hissed, looking Jim up and down for clues to where he’d even been. It’s not like there were many  _ bars _ , per se, on Vulcan. A few sprigs of dry desert scrub clung to his dusty clothes.

“I know!” he’d hissed back. They were probably well in range of Vulcan hearing, but the house remained quiet in the pause he took to rub his eyes and lower his whisper. “I know, and I’m sorry. But Bones, I thought he’d be… I thought I wouldn’t be  _ alone _ for this.”

Intent on delivering a dose of reality, McCoy stabbed a finger at the truant’s chest. “ _ You  _ are leaving  _ him  _ alone, Jim. You know him better than he knows himself right now.”

The censure wasn’t accepted meekly. Indignation raised Kirk’s voice. “ _ Please. _ Better than  _ you  _ know him? What are you doing with that mind link if you’re not being there for Spock?”

“A damn sight more than you,” he’d snapped, and instantly regretted it.

Kirk fixed him with a cold glare. “I  _ won’t  _ put him in harm’s way by asking him for what you’re taking for granted,” he snarled, voice dangerously low.

“Jim, that’s not what I—“

“I know what you  _ meant.  _ You want me to pretend everything’s like it was, like nothing’s changed. It  _ has  _ changed.  _ Nothing  _ is the same, and how can I be who he remembers when I’m  _ not that person anymore?  _ How can I make sense of that, without…” he stopped, and McCoy had just enough time to glimpse his stricken expression before he whirled around for the door.

Things had been even more awkward than usual since. 

Jim spoke over his shoulder with forced casualness as he took care of the dishes. “Call me whatever you want, Spock, just don’t call me late for dinner.”

The cautious look didn’t leave Spock’s face until he saw Amanda’s smile. “A figure of speech, my son.”

McCoy watched him relax, felt the tension leave him. He tried to be inconspicuous about rubbing his temples with his non-coffee hand. Jim might be sorely missing this mind-link thing, but it seemed like more trouble than it was really worth. Whenever the three of them were in a room together, it was dark storm clouds crowding the horizon, distantly rumbling and too slow moving to tell if they were approaching or retreating.

He wished the damn storm would break already.

As usual, Sarek was the last to wander into the kitchen, immaculately dressed, groomed, postured, and undeniably groggy. Amanda always observed him with a fond look of sympathy before presenting a cup of tea and a two-fingered peck to her husband, and she did so now. If everyone noticed his unguarded expression of gratitude, nobody mentioned it. 

“‘Morning, Ambassador,” said McCoy, as Jim and Spock were increasingly engrossed in their breakfast and definitely not ignoring each other and everyone else.

“Doctor.” Sarek gave him a nod and cast a tolerant glance at the other two men. He was as aware of the tension as anyone.

McCoy left them at the bar to join Sarek and Amanda at the small table by the window.

“Will you be attending the xenocardiology conference this afternoon?” asked Sarek, appearing somewhat bolstered by the hot tea in his hands. He was barely verging on elderly, for a Vulcan, but his heavy dark eyes spoke to the hidden worry and late nights spent in assistance to Spock on top of his normal diplomatic duties. McCoy had no problem remarking on his need for more rest, and did so regularly. The replies, surprisingly, lacked the denial he’d come to expect from Spock. ‘Perhaps,’ was common, ‘Indeed,’ was second place. 

Taking his son’s motley crew into his home and estate was indication enough of Sarek’s thanks for bringing Spock back home alive. But McCoy was amused to realize after some weeks under the same roof the rapport he and the aging diplomat shared. It was not only the reborn Spock, but  _ Jim  _ that required a sort of parental supervision these days, and Sarek had apparently accepted responsibility for both. Since this had been McCoy’s purview for many years, it was silently understood that a team effort was beneficial.

As the former guardian of Spock’s katra, McCoy too was regarded almost…  _ affectionately  _ by Sarek, and echoes of that ginger regard were felt every time the characteristically stoic Vulcan inquired after his doings. If Spock and Jim were  _ sons _ , McCoy apparently fit in as their  _ oldest brother.  _

Sarek served in an advisory capacity with regard to  _ the boys,  _ as McCoy thought of them. But the doctor himself was in the role of confidant to Sarek more often than not. 

Now, as Sarek was hardly one for open admittance of turmoil, that being an emotion, he focused on the practical aspects of his problems. Instead of “it’s soul crushing to see my son fall from accomplished and confident to insecure and timid,” Sarek would obliquely note that “a reduction in work hours will yield more resources for the challenge at hand.” Rather than “I’m going to inflict the Ancient Ways on our ex-starship captain if he doesn’t stop ‘upgrading’ my hovercar,” it was “perhaps to redouble my efforts in securing a command position for Kirk would be the course of wisdom.”

However, somehow it didn’t seem right to reciprocate the confidence. The whole emotional transference thing could be exhausting, sure, but Spock’s parents probably had that and more on their plate to deal with without humoring his whining.

In fact, he wasn’t sure just  _ who  _ to mention it to, since it was a sore subject with Jim and Spock obviously needed help with it himself. Although Vulcan mind specialists were regulars to the Sarek house, after the  _ fal-tor-pan  _ sparkle had worn off they lost interest in McCoy. He figured their time was better spent helping Spock relearn his controls than playing therapist to the psi-null human anyway. Scotty and Uhura were back on Earth consulting for a civilian starship thinktank, Sulu was overseeing a Terran agriculture project on Vulcan’s north pole, and where Checkov was, the Lord only knew.

McCoy leaned back in his chair, tipping it idly on its back legs. “Yeah. The Academy volunteered me to give a part on human laser  atherectomy after the thing with Daniel Corrigan... You heard anything about him?”

“Dr. Corrigan is due to return to his practice within the week.”

“Hmph. Just in time to miss his talk… just because your  _ leg’s  _ broken doesn’t mean your  _ mouth  _ doesn’t work,” he grumbled. Normally he wasn’t one for public speaking nerves, but normally he wouldn’t be soliloquizing for an entire roomful of Vulcan scientists. Two weeks of teaching the human unit at the medical branch of the VSA had served very well to remind him of how good he was at sticking his foot in his mouth. At only three days a week, he still hadn’t quite gelled with his students.  _ Or  _ the faculty. Many of which would be attending this symposium, ready to lay their skeptical eyes on his performance. “At least he forwarded his notes to me yesterday.”

Amanda passed him a sly smile. “You know, Leonard, T’rin will be there…”

McCoy laughed. “Oh, don’t even start. I think navigating the Vulcan dating scene is a little outside of my abilities at this age.”

“ _ Surely _ two enthusiastic human medical specialists will have something  _ professional  _ to talk about together?” she insisted, ignoring Sarek’s reproving look.

T’rin was the resident human physician in ShiKahr. As such, she and McCoy had already crossed paths once or twice. One of those times had prompted her to memorably observe: “Blue irises are most striking, Doctor McCoy. Would that I saw more of them.” Amanda, who had been present, was intensely tickled. She informed him later that he’d just been the subject of blatant flirtation, and when was the wedding?

Jim spoke up, attention diverted from an intense inspection of his toast. “Come on, Bones. When was the last time you went on a date?”

“Well,” he drawled, “How long’s it been since the mission with that ship-planet and the microchips that burned a hole in your brain if you crossed the local pseudo-deity?”

A disorienting sliver of memory passed across the back of McCoy’s mind. “Romantic pursuit following a terminal diagnosis is a dissimilar comparison,” Spock said.

Out of his line of sight, Jim smirked at this flash of Old Spock. The storm clouds receded slightly. “I agree,” he said with mock seriousness. “In fact, I propose that since Spock and I will be reinstating our chess habit tonight,  _ you  _ should make plans of your own… before I or Amanda do it for you.”

The ulterior motive was obvious, and despite his knee-jerk resistance to the ribbing he had to admit that Spock and Jim could use the time alone.  _ Really  _ alone, without McCoy’s unintentional mental influence. That didn’t mean he’d arrange a  _ date,  _ but he could probably find something to entertain himself with in town for the evening. “Alright,  _ we’ll see. _ ”

Sarek got up, apparently employing his favorite diplomacy tactic of selectively tuning out their human nonsense. After all, one didn’t enjoy a long and celebrated career as the Terran Ambassador without a proficiency at tolerance. He extended two fingers to Amanda. “Sharing transportation would be most efficient, my wife.”

She smiled up at him, unspoken devotion and more than a little mischief shining in her eyes. If they weren’t so disgustingly happy together, McCoy would have never believed such a marriage could work. But there it was, and you didn’t have to be a mind reader to see it. “Indeed it would, my husband.”

Amanda paused to put a hand on McCoy’s shoulder. “You’ll do wonderful at the conference. I can’t wait to hear all about it,” she intoned with a wink.

She addressed the three of them as she trailed after Sarek’s unceremonious departure. “I have a few errands to run, then I’m meeting a friend. I and Sarek will likely not be home until tonight, so help yourselves to the kitchen— there’s leftovers in the cooler. Be good, gentlemen.”

They made their promises, then were left alone as she and Sarek left for the day.

“Jim,” said McCoy, finally setting his empty cup down for good. “You going to tell me what that limp and the torn up knuckles are about, or am I gonna have to ask?”

Spock eyed Jim with interest. He must have noticed too. Not much got past him, even if he wasn’t always sure how to interpret the data. 

Jim’s eyes widened innocently. “Excuse me,  _ limp?”  _

McCoy was unimpressed. “Yes,  _ limp _ . Don’t play dumb. You’re favoring your left.” 

Jim shrugged, picking up the rest of the dishes. “A man can’t fall and twist an ankle without getting the third degree?”

Suspicious, McCoy appraised him again. “Nope. What happened?”

He spread his hands in exasperation. “I went out for fresh air this morning, I fell, and now I’ve got to go to class. See you, Bones. Spock.” He was already at the doorway.

Like McCoy, Jim was instructing young Vulcans. Unlike McCoy, he was annoyingly natural at finding rapport with his stringently logical students.

“Hey! Put some ice on that!” McCoy called. He looked to Spock. “How about you? What’s on the books today?”

“If I presume you mean my schedule, several barrier control sessions.”

“Good,” said McCoy genuinely. “They helping?”

A weariness crossed Spock’s face and McCoy’s mind simultaneously. “Marginally.” Perhaps sensing the pep talk building up on his friend’s tongue, he hastily continued: “I am due to begin. Excuse me.”

McCoy grimaced at the escaping robes. Apparently he was the only one with nothing to do all morning but bite his fingernails over his presentation.

He wandered to the kitchen sink, studying the window view. Beyond lay ragged stone outcrops that had some Vulcan name he couldn’t recall but that translated roughly to  _ ‘Ribcage’,  _ a suitably ominous designation for the volcanic black and iron oxide red formations.

Jim had a running trail among those spires. He’d been evasive about his fall, if that  _ was _ the truth. To be honest, McCoy worried that Jim’s penchant for thrill-seeking was leading him to violence of some kind. Was he tackling the Vulcan Underground?  _ Joining _ the Vulcan Underground? Did Vulcan even  _ have  _ an Underground?

McCoy snorted at himself. Okay, maybe not. Probably Jim had done as he’d said: tripped in his morning run, ate dirt, and didn’t care to announce his clumsiness to the world.

An unseasonably cool draft touched the back of his neck. The weather, usually so oppressive in its stifling heat, was deliciously fair at the moment. He hadn’t checked the weather forecast but he knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. Orange light played temptingly on the rocks beyond, the hardpack trail an inviting arrow.

He’d take a walk. Some exercise might calm his butterflies, and maybe he could allay his fears about Jim as well.

—

_ “Savensu.”  _

“What can I do for you,  _ Orensu?” _

Jim encouraged his students to use some derivative of his actual name in addressing him. At this point in his life, he was over the formality of impersonal titles, and in such a closed-off society he craved the familiarity. Most students consented to address him as  _ Kirk-su,  _ a polite designation roughly equivalent to  _ Mr. Kirk.  _ Some of the cheekier ones (because he wasn’t fooled by their claims of humorlessness) went with  _ Jim-su.  _ He sheepishly admitted this to Spock, who he’d just about raked over the coals for calling him something similar.

He’d had one or two Vulcan students at Starfleet Academy, but that had hardly prepared him for an entire roster of natives to this desert planet. The nuances of Vulcan youth continually amused and fascinated him.

The biggest surprise was the contrast between Spock’s traditional upbringing— which was characterized by extremely strict adherence to the Vulcan Way— and the more lenient attitude he observed in many of these young adults. Spock was not an everyman. His family was the ruling class of Vulcan, essentially making him a planetary prince (although he’d striven to obscure that fact for as long as possible). The expectation that he would enter politics or diplomacy shaped his early life and education. Part of that expectation was that he would stand as a flawless example of Vulcan ideals, the practical manifestation of Surak’s teachings. Control embodied. Austere in the extreme.

These kids? Not so much.

Last week, intending to pay McCoy a quick visit, he’d startled four of them in the med-lab, one of which was also taking his strategic command course. They startled him, first— the scene he’d walked in on was punctuated by squealing vital sensors and two of them on exam tables, by all appearances having fits of some kind with their hands wrapped around their own faces as if choking, their whole bodies convulsing in the struggle for air. The other two standing students were the first to notice him with a frozen, doe-eyed look.

“What happened? Where is  _ McCoy-su?”  _ he demanded, rushing to the students in distress and attempting to appraise the situation. There was no sign of an altercation in the room, neither did the students themselves appear hostile to one another. The two evidently supervising did not appear to be doing anything to help except observing the sensor readings, which were insistently clamoring to be acted upon.

He hadn’t lost his command presence, even if he’d lost his ship. One of the students on the table snapped out of it, spluttering and gasping like the proverbial fish out of water at the unexpected exclamation.

The other one, however, suddenly seized with an agonal noise that chilled Kirk to the bone. Eternally embedded images of crewmen who’d given their lives in service to him and his ship flashed across his mind. In his nightmares he grasped the bloodied hand of one tow-headed security officer no older than this young man, listening to his last panting rasps and gently reassuring him that they were moments from reuniting with the landing party and the best feel-good drugs his CMO had to offer. He’d been helpless to do anything but see him off and spend the next hour contemplating his botched First Contact in a prison cell with only the dead boy and the oversized arrow he’d taken for his captain as company.

In his nightmares, he saw David, too.

The unconscious young Vulcan’s hands draped limply off the table as one of the definitely-not-panicking supervisors-- T’ven, the one taking his course-- raked her knuckles roughly across his sternum while the other held his shoulders steady. He didn’t react to what Kirk knew from personal experience was disproportionately painful stimulus.

After Khan and the dozens of cadets lost during what was supposed to be a milk-run, not to mention David’s unexpected loss, an apprehension that he might again fail to prevent danger from overcoming his inexperienced (and sometimes foolish) charges lingered. Spock would have steadied his mind, made bearable the piercing guilt.

But he’d failed Spock, as well.

Jim was halfway to the emergency call switch when the alarms ceased and the kid gasped, “I believe… I was… the  _ victor.” _

He turned back in disbelief to take in three sets of wide eyes glaring accusingly down at their friend and one obliviously smug not-smiling face still breathing heavily—but normally— on the table, hands resting contentedly on his chest.

It hit then him that this was some kind of bizarre med-student hijinks, not an emergency. Intense relief eclipsed his anger over the completely unnecessary heart attack he’d just suffered, but he made sure his voice didn’t let on to that. “Alright,  _ what exactly is going on here?” _

The girl who’d administered the sternal rub was quickest to recover from the surprise and fabricate a cover story on behalf of the group. She clasped her hands behind her back. “We are conducting an experiment.”

Incredulous, he waited half-agape for the rest.  _ “Explain.”  _

“...We are comparing the ability of similar physiologies to voluntarily desist in respiration,” T’ven said evenly, feigning boredom as if with a tedious assignment. Her hand indicated a stack of datapadds on a nearby desk, daring him to verify her claim.

But he’d had plenty of practice at parsing out long-winded misdirections, and he didn’t need to rifle through what he knew were totally unrelated files. The absurdity made it hard to maintain a stern front. “This… this is a _breath-holding contest?”_

The others had the grace to look sheepish, but she only cocked her head slightly. “A  _ contest  _ implies competition. Ours is a purely scientific interest,  _ Kirk-su.”  _

Of course. Because experiments could also be said to have  _ victors.  _ To borrow a phrase from a country doctor,  _ Lord help him.  _ “Well, you’d better be glad it was me and not McCoy who caught you at this  _ scientific interest _ ,” he said reprovingly. “He’d have more to censure you on than unauthorized use of lab equipment.” He let them soak in the punitive possibilities for a few moments before continuing. “But, you were at least halfway responsible about it. If I were you, I’d take my leave now before I come up with something good to write you up on.”

They didn’t need much encouragement. The girl gave him an impish nod that reminded him of a certain Vulcan of his long-standing acquaintance before leaving just in time to miss his burst of laughter and McCoy’s confused arrival. 

It was that same student at the foot of his desk, looking decidedly less confident. A couple young  _ Kohlinahr  _ aspirants insisted on “ _ Savensu,” teacher,  _ but she wasn’t one of them. Whatever it was had to be enough to shake her natural poise. “If you have sufficient time,” she added after a pause, glancing at the datapadd on his desk.

He set aside the day’s assignments and gave her a smile, recognizing an effort to stall. If she needed him to drag it out of her, he’d had plenty of practice at that too. “Of course. What’s on your mind?”

Visibly strengthening her control, she steadied her eye contact. “...Have I caused you distress,  _ Savensu?”  _

Jim fought the urge to cringe, tightening his jaw instead.

After the med-lab episode, T’ven had quickly become a bit of a pet, in no small part due to the fact that she reminded him strongly of his former First Officer. She was, coincidentally, the daughter of T’rin, the physician. Perhaps because of that human-centric influence she was more openly everything-- voraciously curious, impossibly dry-humoured, and compassionate to a fault. She made him horribly nostalgic for those Five-Year Mission days. He often found an admonition to consider a career in Starfleet (and eventually, posting on his  _ Enterprise)  _ on the tip of his tongue before time and events caught up. Occasionally such a sharp pang of grief pierced him that he lost his train of thought, and had to refer to his outline to go on with the lecture.

“Why do you ask?” he hedged.

“It was not my intention to… intrude,” she said carefully. “But your emotions are rather  _ loud.”  _

He toyed with a stylus to distract her from his small smile. On the first day of class he had forewarned all of his students, some of whom had never even  _ seen  _ a human, to keep good telepathic barriers or brace for an inevitable onslaught of unchecked feelings. They had adjusted well, although reactions to his occasional  _ emotionalism  _ varied widely. Some disdained it, but most were either merely perplexed or even sympathetic to his pitiable lack of mental control.

T’ven spoke again before he could thus hide behind his species as an excuse.

“Have you lost a bond-mate?”

He looked up sharply to meet her somewhat wincing gaze. It was a direct, but not unkind, question. 

Had he? One heartbreak after another, coupled with a rescue gone horribly right, was hard to untangle wreckage. “... in a sense,” he said finally. “Yes.”

She gave a short nod, seeming to anticipate this reply. “It is  _ thonaya.  _ Anguish. You associate the sensation with me.”

“No,” he said quickly. “It’s not you at all, it’s, well... I associate it with someone very much  _ like  _ you, I suppose. Things lost to the march of time... I’m sorry.” He smiled reassuringly, willing her to dismiss him as simply incomprehensibly  _ human  _ and forget the whole thing. “I’ll be more careful.”

“There is no offense where none is taken,” she said, seeming relieved. She turned her eyes to the windows.

A sandstorm had descended on ShiKahr not long after he’d arrived at the Institute that morning. Lightning rattled the windows for hours before slowly backing off over the course of the afternoon, leaving a thick haze of sand over the city and reducing visibility.

“Use caution on your return,  _ Kirk-su _ ,” she said, turning to go.

“Thank you, T’ven. Likewise.” He waited to be alone and blew out a breath. 

So it was that obvious.

There was always the possibility of commanding a starship again, even of poaching T’ven for his crew if Sarek’s confidence in the matter was to be believed. The stars called him as they always had. However, he could admit some uncertainty to himself as to whether it would be even close to the same as it was. A different ‘Fleet, a different people, different ships and different modus operandi…

... and maybe a different First Officer.

In an automated taxi undeterred by the impenetrable haze, he wondered guiltily if Spock felt his unrest as easily as T’ven did. Surely they shared many of the same doubts about the future, but it now dawned on him that he could be exacerbating things for Spock. Normally a frank conversation would have clarified and united them by now. But the  _ fal-tor-pan  _ had brought Spock back changed, a blank slate in many ways even though most of his memories had gradually returned. He’d had to hear from McCoy that despite remembering past relationships in an academic sense, it was if the memories belonged to someone else. Observable, but sapped of their vital emotion.

Friction arose between him and the doctor as it became apparent that Spock was drawn almost exclusively to McCoy, shunning Kirk in favor of the man who had safeguarded his  _ katra.  _ He fought the envy down as best he could, but his as-yet unresolved grief-- so much grief-- produced a shameful amount of resentment towards his best friends. It was  _ good  _ that Spock had an old friend grounding him through all this, and good for McCoy to be able to speak freely to someone about the telepathic inconveniences involved. He should be happy for them.

But as far as Kirk was concerned, Spock felt like a stranger and McCoy felt  _ distracted,  _ his usually down-to-earth, constructive perceptions blunted. Like Spock, McCoy seemed to be avoiding closeness with him. The distance they’d endured as their locations and Starfleet careers had diverged wasn’t half as painful as the distance that divided them now, within the same household.

He peered out, catching glimpses of architecture and landmarks that were totally foreign to him just months ago. Maybe his unspoken feelings were just making things awkward, he thought optimistically, and once they cleared the air, everything would be better. They were still on for chess, the first real alone time they’d successfully arranged since  _ before. _

But by the time he was sitting across a tri-D chess board from Spock, eyeing the trap lying in wait for his black king, he was unsure how to broach the subject. So far Spock was polite, intelligent, and completely... impersonal. Resisting the light attempts to draw him out.

The wind howled outside, pressing the reddened fog onwards in the slow sunset light. Days were still long, persisting until he put his head down each night. Jim moved his queen and cleared his throat, several potential segues to this conversation having already fallen flat. Time to do or die. “Spock. Do my emotions… bother you?”

Spock studied him with veiled surprise. “I am well aware of the human propensity towards emotion, Jim.”

He toed deeper water, ignoring the deflection and preparing for the quintessentially Vulcan disclaiming of emotion that Spock seemed to have re-learned. “No, I mean…  _ My  _ emotions. When you  _ feel  _ them, around me. Do I upset you?”

Spock hesitated before at long last delivering a semi-straight answer. “I... do not sense your emotions.”

Progress. Jim smiled skeptically, unbelieving, as words long left unsaid seized the opportunity to rush out. “It’s alright that you  _ do _ , Spock. I’ve been a hard-to-ignore open book to you for a long time. And I know that there’s transference happening between you and McCoy, that’s fine, I just want to be sure I’m not--”

“Jim,” Spock interrupted, eyes averted and frame tense. “I  _ cannot  _ sense your emotions.”

“Can’t,” he said dumbly.  _ “Can’t?”  _

Spock studied the board in silence for several moments, ostensibly to plan his move and not to avoid Kirk’s distraught stare.

“No.”

His heart, crushed for so long under an array of disappointments and peculiar loneliness, threatened to crack and fall in pieces around his feet. This wasn’t what he’d expected, even  _ thought  _ to fear, but now such a panic of emotion ploughed through him that he was ironically grateful Spock would be spared its devastation. How much of their friendship relied on the honesty of an open mind? And if this rent them apart, and if Bones couldn’t withstand the shift... Broken forever.  _ Eternal  _ solitude…

Dying alone.

Jim licked his lips, tried to slow his aching pulse as if Spock’s sensitive hearing hadn’t already heard. “Even if you… try?” he ventured, voice thin.

Spock was locked to the board. “I have tried. Nearly every day.”

He swallowed. He’d felt flatly ignored for weeks, not sought for in a sensitive mental connection. Even knowing that there was  _ interest  _ would have alleviated some of his distress. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I might inquire the same of you.”

Obviously that was the truth. He’d deferred to the warnings from Sarek and the healers without so much as asking Spock’s opinion, afraid that broaching the subject might damage his fragile friend.

Might push him farther out of reach. “I’m sorry… I wasn’t sure how much you...” he trailed off, uncertain.

“My memories are all accessible now,” said Spock softly. “I do remember. You were...  _ t'hy'la _ .”

Despite the sorrow in that past tense-- damn that Vulcan specificity-- a flare of bittersweet affection tightened his throat. “And am I still?”

Spock finally returned his eyes to him. They were sad, pained. “I do not know,” he said quietly.

The obvious regret tugged at Kirk. That was undeserved suffering, and he craved to do whatever he could do to quell it. If Spock wished, he would go to the ends of space and time all over again to see him fully restored. That was more than fair repayment for trading his life without hesitation for the lives of his crew, his friends, his captain... 

McCoy was right. He’d abandoned Spock in favor of a selfish pity party, and that ended right now.

“You _ are _ my  _ t'hy'la,  _ Spock,” he said, clasping his hands and resting his elbows on his knees for the few extra inches closer it brought him to his friend. “Then. Now. For as long as I live.” He quirked a small smile. “In fact, I seem to have little control over the matter. You might just be stuck with me.”

Spock took a deep breath, reminding Jim to let go of the one he’d been holding.

“Jim,” said Spock, and he could sense a burning question coming. The Vulcan’s long fingers twitched, and he knew immediately what that question was. “Would you be willing to attempt--”

“Yes,” he interrupted, with a small laugh as a knot of tension unravelled. “Yes, Spock. I thought you’d never ask.” 

Something in Spock’s eyes tightened with resolve. They were both aware of the dire warnings leveled at the other against a mind-meld, and it was understood that they were both prepared to ignore the danger to themselves in favor of protecting the other. Spock slid the chess board aside, lifted his hand, leaning with fingertips inches from Jim’s cheek, forehead—

And the house comm unit blared.

They exchanged half-relieved, half persecuted glances. Spock stepped away, read the caller identification. “It is T’rin.”

Several moments passed before Kirk’s distracted brain could place the name. T’rin. Human specialist. McCoy’s potential date. He’d registered the doctor’s absence from the house along with Sarek’s and Amanda’s with no further thought to his whereabouts. An odd feeling sharpened the air, shoved his personal turmoil aside. “Answer it.”

Spock activated the panel. “James Kirk and Spock here.”

A female voice, but no picture. She was calling from a hand unit. “This is T’rin. Are you aware that Doctor McCoy did not attend the xenocardiology conference?”

Kirk stepped closer to the panel to stand beside Spock. “No… but he had to have gone. He had a talk to give.”

Her tone was cool and efficient. “Negative. Multiple attempts to reach him via his personal communicator or office went unanswered. Is he present?”

Jim thought of their morning conversation and its abrupt conclusion. He looked uneasily to Spock, probably the last to see McCoy. “The Doctor has not been here since morning, T’rin,” Spock said. His eyebrows furrowed slightly. “What is your purpose in inquiring?”

There was a slight pause filled only by the scrape of desert shrubs buffeting the outer walls. “I was the coordinator of the human symposium,” she said. “Doctor McCoy’s credentials did not indicate this development.”

“You got that right,” Jim muttered, truly anxious now. McCoy was known to complain, but not to shirk responsibility or break commitments. If he hadn’t showed up without so much as sending word, something was really wrong.

“Thank you. We will investigate,” said Spock. He severed the connection.

For once, the old synchrony put them to their tasks.

“I’ll check around for a note,” Jim said, turning towards the kitchen. Even on Vulcan, the fridge was the first place to look for handwritten memos. “You try his communicator, then--”

“Sarek. I will.”

  
  


—

  
  


McCoy didn’t buy into the concept of a  _ good _ death. It defied everything he stood for as a healer to give concession to that primal enemy except in circumstances of extreme mercy. And even then he didn’t like it. 

There was painless death, usually medically supported. Inevitable death, perhaps after a long, satisfying life. Death on behalf of others, something he himself had faced innumerable times in service to his fellow sapient and his captain. Those weren’t totally without value.

This was none of those.

Because this?  _ This  _ was a stupid death.

Far above, maybe thirty feet or so, the last red sliver of light taunted him. Night had begun seeping into his broken body hours ago as the storm blocked the sun’s warmth from coming anywhere close to the bottom of this already dark crevice. It would only fill him faster now as true darkness fell. Exertion and pain left his skin clammy with cold sweat. 

He’d traveled the galaxy, defied disease and disaster and every peril known to man or alien, and here he was: grimly looking down the barrel of a loaded  _ hiking accident. _

He eyed the dim glitter of his crushed communicator for the hundredth time. If he could get it working in some capacity...

For the one hundred and first time, he abandoned the idea in disgust and shut his eyes to recover from the strain of thought. Even if he was as technologically adept as Spock or Jim, he’d need two hands that worked and enough light to see what the hell he was doing, which he didn’t. Who knew if a signal could escape this hole, anyway?

Anger helped temper his more morose thoughts.

The damning evidence he’d discovered— a well used fingerless glove helpfully labeled  _ Jim Kirk  _ in black marker— was clenched in his good hand even now. When he’d picked it up in the midst of his relaxing stroll through the rock formations and noticed the adjacent rock wall with freshly cracked debris scattered around, putting two and two together was easy enough.

Leave it to Jim to take a normal habit like a morning jog and substitute something reckless like  _ free climbing.  _

As his pleasant stroll through the imposing crags and around the scattered fissures became an indignant march, he’d made plans to furiously wave the forgotten glove in Jim’s face, accompanied by words like  _ ridiculous  _ and  _ completely stupid _ . His internal tirade preoccupied him to the point of failing to notice the increasing windspeed or the slow occlusion of the sun’s edges. Composing phrases like  _ too old for this  _ and  _ should know better  _ was violently interrupted when he stepped out of the still shelter of a narrow box canyon and took a blast of red sand to the eyes.

He’d cried out in surprise and pain, staggering blindly backwards over rocks and then suddenly, open air. One shoulder bounced off a hard edge as he fell, unseen protrusions battering him before he smashed side-first onto the uneven rockfall at the distant bottom.

Several agonizing minutes passed before his diaphragm stopped spasming and he could draw enough breath to take stock of his situation. Sheer walls of rock towered on either side of him, maybe two feet apart. The jagged surface stabbing into his side was a rockpile, not quite a floor. Briefly struggling up on an elbow, he could see that where the rocks ended just beyond his feet or head, the crevice continued to taper downwards tens of feet into shadowy nothing. He could only guess that a large rock or two had been trapped here, creating a platform that supported smaller pieces of rubble. If he’d fallen a few feet either way, he could be down in that tiny gap instead, utterly jammed and unable to move.

Not that moving was a pleasant prospect at the moment. He spent the last of his adrenaline rush on propping himself up against a wall, quickly finding his right hand next to useless, his wrist wrenched somehow in the fall and already swelling . His body complained left and right, so he concentrated on one limb at a time. No obvious skeletal fractures. A few cuts, probably a hellacious amount of bruising. Abdominal pain. That was a little dismaying-- bruising was one thing, but there wasn’t much he could do for an internal injury without going in for treatment at a hospital. He’d be hard-pressed to get retrieval from this confounded hole in the ground in time to make the conference  _ without _ waiting around somebody else’s emergency ward first.

He dislodged an uncomfortable object jabbing his thigh muscle and stared uncomprehendingly at the mangled circuitry. Did he leave a scanner in his pocket?

His stomach lurched as realization struck.

It was what remained of his communicator. Without it…

Gaze shooting to the surface in rising horror, he realized that no one knew he was here. No one was expecting him until the conference, and no one who  _ might  _ think to check the Ribcage would miss him for hours after that. Maybe not even until sometime tomorrow, when he failed to arrive at the Institute.

Wind howled through the stone maze above now, mixing with the hiss of spraying sand. The crash of a nearby lightning strike jolted his nerves, followed by another, then another, in quick succession. A sandfire storm-- he’d heard of them, but hadn’t seen one until now. Vulcan’s sandstorms were intense, generating tremendous static electricity. Anyone caught without shelter risked electrocution, meaning every living person in ShiKahr would be inside until it ended. Which could be hours from now.

Or days.

Ironically, being trapped in this crevice probably saved his life. Temporarily, anyway. It’d also prevented any attempts to climb out, since as soon as he got up to the top he was in danger of either being struck by lightning or lost in the driving sand.

An eternity of roaring wind and thunder flash kept him hunkered down in the rocks. He was protected from all but the calmly falling particulates soon covering him in a thick layer and irritating his airways. Involuntary coughing cleared his throat but also miserably jostled his suspected liver injury.

He curled up on his side in attempt to minimize movement.

He gave the communicator one more look. Useless. How long had he been down here? He wasn’t a walking calculator like Spock, but he’d guess a solid six hours had gone by. Thirst burned his tongue, and he thought longingly of the coffee and fruit juice at breakfast.

After the cacophony of the afternoon, the quiet seemed dense and cottony. Sleepy.

He shook himself back to alertness. Now that the storm was passed, he should try getting out of here on his own. Stiff and shaky, he climbed slowly to his feet. A faintness curtained him; he slumped against the wall until it passed.

He was still holding the glove wadded up in a sweaty palm. He’d almost forgotten why he had it in the first place-- it was all he had of another homo sapien in his solitary prison, not a tool for chastisement.

With some difficulty because of his injured hand, he pulled it on and studied the vertical rock dubiously. There were plenty of footholds, but he’d have to keep himself close to the wall with his upper body, and doing that one-handed would be a challenge.

Experimentally, he supported himself on a handle and stepped up about two feet, keeping his bad wrist curled protectively against his chest. Aiming carefully, he shot out with his hand for the next purchase point and took another step up. He was already huffing, heart racing either with fear or encroaching systemic shock. He looked down, careful not to stray out of line from the rock platform.

He swallowed and browsed for another handhold. This time options were farther up and more difficult to gauge for certain at this angle. He made his best guess and was relieved to get a good grip on it. He rested in place for a moment, trying not to notice the enormous height yet to go.

Tightening his grip, he pushed off for the next step.

His handhold snapped away from the cliff face, leaving him flailing helplessly for a moment before the high gravity sucked him down once more.

Second impact was indescribably excruciating. Hot waves of pain shot through his core, up his spine, and through his shoulder like the sandfire. Shaking fists wrapped his abdomen as he bit off a panting moan.

That was a bad idea. He’d have said so himself if he wasn’t the one down here, out of sight and out of mind.

The pain dulled to a more manageable throb, making room for sudden nausea. He turned to retch.

On his back now, he gingerly palpated around the lower edge of his ribcage, wincing at the tenderness. He’d probably suffered a lacerated liver; Lord knew he’d treated his share of those. The second fall must have exacerbated it, or maybe got it bleeding again. Dark bruising around his sides and navel confirmed the bleeding. A lot of bleeding.

A draft brushed his limp, trembling body. Night brought cold temperatures, and hypothermia. Shock. Death.

He wasn’t leaving things right with Jim. He should have done more to push him and Spock closer, or maybe done what he’d done differently. It stung to know the tension between Jim and himself wouldn’t get its proper resolution, but the thought that the rift between Jim and Spock might never close filled him with regret. They were both too young to live with something like that.

A lucid thought came to his weary mind, and he hurried the best he could to see it through before the light faded completely. Picking up a small pointed stone, he turned to his side and scratched it against the wall facing him. A pleasing white line appeared on the red rock.

A message. But what to say? It had to be something short or he might not finish. It had to be the right words for Spock and Jim, without being the wrong words for everyone else in his life.

He snorted tiredly. Well, it was a little quaint but he’d mean it with all his heart.

Decision made, he worked as quickly as he could without getting sloppy, biting his lip against the pain and to fend off the grey halo surrounding his vision.

It took longer than he expected. But he forged on, determined to get this out if it was the last thing he ever did.

After the last stroke he let his arm flop to his side, exhausted. Unbearably thirsty. Weakness was creeping up on him fast now, and his time was getting short.

Having soothed the worry for his friends as best he could, he had a little while to indulge himself. Mainly he wished for company. Spock, out of range in mind and body, would be a steady presence a dying man could take comfort in, and he craved the mind-touch he’d cursed only that morning. Jim was bitter at him on that account, but maybe he’d put that aside to sit with an old friend regardless. Amanda, bless her soul, she’d probably lullaby him like his own dear mother, and he hoped she’d help JoAnna through this. Sarek, austere but mellowed with time and fatherhood, would offer him the security of facts and the reassurance that his friends would be alright without him.

Really, he’d take _ anybody _ who would listen to him gripe one last time about his damnable luck.

The glint of the broken communicator was by his feet now. He had enough spite left to hate the thing, its failure to do its one solitary job, and the predicament it had thrust on him. Scowling, he gathered his strength and gave it a savage kick.

It clattered down, down, down into the abyss.

—

“Anything?” Kirk asked.

Spock’s wrapped head covering concealed all but his dark, concentrating eyes. “I still do not sense his mind. But I am certain now that this is the direction he vanished into this morning.”

They’d covered the stone spires about halfway in, keeping to the trail. The dusky air was still hazy, their lights diffuse. Off trail hazards were difficult to see and the last thing they needed was to stumble into trouble themselves.

Sarek was following leads in ShiKahr— calling authorities, hospitals, acquaintances at the Institute, anybody who might supply a clue as to McCoy’s location. Meanwhile Spock and Jim searched the Ribcage, armed with phasers to deter any problematic wildlife and the doctor’s med-kit to be prepared for the worst.

“Keep trying,” Kirk said. “He’ll probably hear you before he hears me.” He took a deep breath, cupping his hands around his mouth where he’d pulled down his dust filtering headwear to call once more.  _ “Bones!”  _

They slowly worked their way back in the same fashion. Spock tried to find the mind link, and Jim threw his voice through the echoing towers as dusk became dark night. No starlight pierced through the sand-fog, and Vulcan’s sister planet T’kut was out of season.

The trail did not loop. It ended in a box canyon where a hiker would need to turn and go back the way they came. Kirk had been there early in the morning, climbing the rippled sides and taking a mild fall (he blamed on the slick-worn treads of his old climbing shoes) that McCoy had picked up on immediately.

Jim scanned those solid walls with dismay. “We’ll just have to give it another pass on the way out,” he said with confidence he didn’t feel. “If he’s here, he can’t have gone far from the path.”

Spock merely nodded, absorbed in his telepathic search. They returned to the mouth of the canyon.

Shrugging his bomber jacket closer, Kirk inhaled for another call.

“Jim.”

He doubled back, realizing that he’d left Spock frozen several steps behind. “What is it? Is it McCoy?”

Spock’s head was tilted as if listening carefully. “Yes. It is close, but very weak.”

Urgency renewed him. He switched on the doctor’s tricorder, slowly scanning the area. He frowned at the screen. “I’m not picking up any life signs here.”

The Vulcan’s eyes stared into the middle distance as he drifted slowly off trail. “He is nearby.”

Jim followed, head down to run another scan, then his periphery registered a change in terrain. “Spock!”

He yanked the Vulcan backwards before he could load the foot swinging into the gap.

Spock peered down with surprise into a huge crevice hidden behind a low rise, then turned to Jim with raised eyebrows. “My thanks.”

Jim squeezed his arm and shined his light into the dark. “There’s better ways to descend a cliff wall, Mr. Spock.”

Spock’s light joined his in sweeping the interior of the gaping stone split. Then, almost at the same time, they both lit on one target of interest.

“Bones,” Jim breathed, resisting the urge to climb over the edge and go to him in one long leap. He was on a rocky ledge of some kind twenty or thirty feet below, curled on his side.  _ “Bones!” _ he cried, but there was no movement.

“I believe he is unconscious,” said Spock. “There does not appear to be a descending route, Jim.”

“He must have fallen. There’s a belay rope in the canyon—“ he didn’t finish the sentence before racing back to retrieve it from its unobtrusive cache.

When he returned, Spock was already in contact with a rescue team. Jim left him to it and found a solid attachment point for his rope before throwing the tail end into the crevice.

Spock’s call ended as he was testing his weight against the rope. “Our situation has been acknowledged. Help may be delayed, however, due to a high volume of storm related emergencies.”

Jim grimaced. He knew the first thing he’d try if he had Scotty and the Enterprise at hand, but he would have to make do. “I’m going down. Stay up here in case the cavalry arrives or something happens to me.”

He rushed the descent, controlling it but burning his hands slightly in the process. 

As soon as his boots hit rock he spun around to kneel by the shallow rise and fall of McCoy’s side. He gently took his shoulder, searching the pale face. “Bones.”

No response. Jim took the med scanner out and studied the readings, as he’d seen McCoy do hundreds of times. He stared.

_ Unlike  _ McCoy, when he read the numbers and abbreviations and blinking red lights, no lifesaving miracles materialized. He tossed the hand scanner into the med kit with frustration and searched for the one safe bet he knew— a tri-ox hypo.

To his utter consternation, all the vials were marked with long, unfamiliar names. Some of them were even in Vulcan, which was hopelessly beyond his everyday command of the language. He reached for his communicator, swallowing the frantic edge that threatened to creep into his voice. “Spock.”

_ “Here. What is the Doctor’s condition?” _

“I’m not sure. I need one of you to interpret these readings, and there’s no time to trade places. I’m going to try fastening a harness to bring him up.” Jim left the channel open to keep his hands free, putting the device back on his belt. First, he’d need to get the rope around him—

When he started to lift McCoy’s middle away from the ground, a raw cry of pain tore from his friend’s throat.

_ “Jim?”  _ snapped Spock.

Rattled, he let go and steadied McCoy by the shoulders. “Sorry, Bones, sorry…” he murmured, heart pounding. The miserable moan in reply cut him to the quick, and he clutched McCoy’s gloved hand, bringing it against his chest protectively. The exposed fingers were icy. This was worse than it looked. “It’s all right, Bones, I’m here. Spock’s here. Take it easy…”

_ “He has regained partial awareness, but not total coherence.” _

Jim’s eyes widened. “Can you communicate with him at all?”

_ “Somewhat. His thoughts are fragmented, however.” _

He sat up. “I need medical information. Drug names, dosages, a diagnosis. Instructions. Can you get that?”

_ “If he unintentionally confuses the data—“ _ Spock began, but Jim cut him off.

“His worst advice is better than my best guess,” he said, feeling the fast flutter of McCoy’s pulse with his free hand. “Time’s of the essence.”

Brief silence, then:  _ “The doctor believes he has sustained a lacerated liver. Severe hemorrhage, hypovolemia.” _

Jim blinked. “Okay, forget the diagnoses, I need drugs and dosages.”

_ “Triplex Oxygenate. Full dose.” _

Now they were getting somewhere. He squeezed McCoy’s hand and let go to rifle through the med kit. “Got it.” He tilted the clammy chin away and depressed the plunger into his neck before shedding his jacket and carefully tucking it around McCoy, who stirred uncomfortably. “And I’ve covered him up; he’s freezing. Now what?”

_ “That was appropriate. Administer hydroxyethyl amulum.” _

Jim searched the kit, throwing McCoy’s carefully organized pack into a jumble in the process. He’d apologize later. “Found it. How much?”

There was silence on the other end. Jim had to consciously loosen his grip on the tube for fear of crushing it. “Spock! How much?”

_ “... Unclear. ‘Two,’ but he does not elaborate.” _

Jim brought the light close to the hypo. “A full tube is five ccs. There are four tubes. Is it two ccs or two tubes?”

_ “...’Twenty?’”  _ Spock said, with a questioning lilt.  _ “His mind is drifting, Jim.” _

A memory surfaced. Kirk decisively spun the dial to  _ ‘2 cc’  _ and in his hurry gave it with more roughness than he intended. McCoy didn’t react. “Two ccs per twenty minutes. The last time he reamed me out for bleeding all over his Sickbay, that’s what he told the nurses,” he explained breathlessly. “What about painkiller?”

_ “Triptacederine, five ccs.”  _ Spock sounded confident this time.

“You’ve been daydreaming about that one, haven’t you,” he told McCoy, although unsure if he’d be heard. He found the hypo more quickly this time. “Alright. Done.”

_ “... It seems further treatment will require a medical environment.” _

Kirk glanced up, where Spock’s light was peering down on them. “Where’s that rescue craft?” he muttered. McCoy shifted under his hand and he looked down at a rolling head and eyes winced tightly closed. Jim noted the jagged stones forming the doctor’s pillow and pulled his headdress off to fold and carefully insert behind McCoy’s head. He kept one hand on the damp forehead to still it. “Bones? Are you with me?”

Blue eyes cracked for only a moment before shuttering in recoil from the blinding headlamp. Jim quickly dimmed it to a dull glow. McCoy blinked slowly, unfocused. “That’s it… He’s waking up.”

McCoy’s gloved hand-- was that  _ his  _ glove _?...  _ It  _ was  _ his glove-- reached blindly for him. He caught it, caged it within his own. It was shaking.

_ “We are indeed present, Doctor. You are not hallucinating.”  _

Jim breathed a laugh and tightened his hold. Overhead he heard the low rumble of precision hovercraft. Spotlight flashes skated over the rocks. “Hold on another minute and you’ll be out of here.”

McCoy’s exhausted eyes lingered on him, then closed with a small, tight smile. He spared a short rasp. 

_ “...Figures.”  _

\--

Music flowed through McCoy’s half-awareness. It wasn’t a recording, he didn’t think, and the accompanying voice definitely wasn’t. Strings carried the tune for the gently swinging, low-sung lyrics. He didn’t understand the words-- it was in Vulcan, and the verses escaped without translation-- but it evoked the wavy rhythms that soothed his young daughter, soothed him, so many years ago.

Sleep came and went on the tides of song until the insistent throb pulling his midsection drew him to the surface.

He opened his eyes, blearily taking in soft blue linens and characteristic filaments of a bio-bed. The unusual pastel walls and surfaces of the small room were still distinctly Vulcan in design, despite the indulgent hue. Shapes on nearby furniture solidified into people. He focused on the one closest, with the lyrette, realizing with astonishment that it was none other than Sarek’s precise playing and eternally stern mouth that had been lulling him under.

Sarek must have heard him stir; he glanced towards the bed before finishing the song and resting the obviously aged instrument across his lap. He gave McCoy a visual appraisal.

“Ever sing those for Spock?” McCoy asked drowsily, hoarse from what seemed like ages without water.

“When small, and in times of illness,” said Sarek quietly. A slightly wry look bent his lips as he nodded to his right. “Or restlessness.”

McCoy followed his gesture to a short sofa. Spock sat with his head tilted back, eyes closed and mind quiet. Jim sprawled inelegantly in the remaining space, head on the armrest and legs stretched out across Spock’s lap. His jacket was thrown over his chest, a datapadd weighing it down as if he’d dozed off while reading. Both were asleep.

He grinned lopsidedly. “Pretty effective, Ambassador.”

“Lady Amanda’s insight can be most… interesting.” He indicated the lyrette.

“Hm.” Sleep tempted him, closing his eyes. It wasn’t what he’d expected, but then he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t hallucinating this whole thing. A painful twinge then reminded him why he’d woken; he shifted uncomfortably.

Sarek said nothing, only calmly pressed a button on a nearby panel and resumed picking a wordless melody.

He must have drifted off, because he wasn’t aware of anyone else entering the room until they spoke his name, low in volume but crisp. “Doctor McCoy.”

“Mm?” He frowned and turned his head away. He craved sleep to drown the pain in his middle; maybe it’d lift by the time he woke up. Whoever it was could go on and get lost until then.

“Discomfort appears to be impeding his rest,” he heard Sarek say,

“Doctor McCoy. Provide a subjective rating of your pain level, if you please.”

He rolled his eyes. Jim was right. That  _ was  _ an incredibly annoying question, especially when you were trying to get some shut-eye. “I dunno,” he mumbled, cracking an eye. “Six.”

It took several moments for him to recognize the Vulcan with the datapadd as T’rin. Right. The pastel walls— her human ward. She’d probably been the one to operate on him. She hovered over the IV machinery next to his bed, pushing buttons and whathaveyou. Her hair, shining black but for a narrow streak of silver that indicated her age, was tied back tightly behind a wiry Vulcan hair-clip thing he was thinking he’d seen JoAnna wearing once. 

He lifted his head in an attempt to see what she was giving him. “Hey. That better not be vioxi— oh,” he said, a rush of pleasant lightheadedness lolling his head back to the pillow. The pain dulled, or at least, went somewhere farther away.

“You said something, Doctor?” It was hard to tell if she was teasing him or not, what with the drugs and her lack of eyebrow raising. 

He flopped a limp hand. “Ne’ermind.” The drowsiness receded as something crossed his mind. “Hey. Did I get hit by a hoverbus, ‘r what?”

“You were found in a ravine.” Hang on, there was the eyebrow. “Although presumed accidental, your…  _ note _ … has introduced some doubt to that theory.”

Images sauntered in on his memory. Pain. Fear. Aggravation at such a  _ boneheaded _ demise. “Oh yeah… uh,  _ note?”  _ The only note he’d brought into that hellhole was that green glove he was gonna smack Jim with for being such a daredeviling nincompoop for climbing alone, in secret, just asking to break his neck or go missing in a geological booby trap.... He wondered where it was; the only thing on his hand now was a IV cannula and an itchy piece of medical tape.

T’rin didn’t seem troubled by his lack of recollection. She only looked across at Sarek, who stood partially, plucked the PADD from Jim— who stretched and sighed, joining the still but quietly observing Spock in the land of the conscious—and passed it to McCoy. “It is ordinary procedure to document the scene of an incident,” explained T’rin.

He turned on the screen. The first thing that registered in his molasses-thick mind wasn’t the image; it was that Jim had been studying it when he fell asleep. An odd pang of guilt for inflicting his dying wish on the living hit him alongside a warm wave of affection for the companions that obviously weren’t in such dire need of his advice after all.

Jim smiled guiltily back at him. At least they understood each other.

As he read the words again, thought of the sharp stone he’d pinched between his fingers and the grinding scrape of his determined scrawling, he resolved to take his own admonition more seriously. It  _ was  _ pretty sage, if he said so himself, and the three (four? Maybe he _ should  _ go on that date) beings in this room exchanging various degrees of amused, relieved, and sleepy-eyed glances seemed united by the one thought he’d scratched on the crevice wall:

TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER.

——-


End file.
